For artificial teeth (commonly called "dental restorations") closely to replicate the lost natural teeth that they replace the artificial teeth must appear to emerge from the gums with the same shapes and contours that natural teeth have as they emerge from the gums. The increasing availability of dental implants, particularly osseointegrated implants, to serve as artificial roots, has provided opportunities to address this problem using techniques for fabricating implant-supported restorations directly to implants. Such a technique is described in published articles which appeared in The International Journal of Oral & Maxillofacial Implants, Vol. 3, Number 1, 1988 at pages 25-26 "Single-Tooth Implant Supported Restorations" Lewis, S. G. et al., and Number 3, 1988 at pages 183-189 "The "UCLA" Abutment", Lewis, S. et al. A similar result using a different abutment is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,988,298, which is owned by the Assignee of the present invention. The problem is incompletely addressed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,073,522 issued to Daftary Dec. 17, 1991.
In general, the existing techniques are done using components which function to expand a transmucosal opening from the round size of the implant to a larger round size that more nearly approximates the size of the tooth where it emerges from the gum. The above-mentioned application Ser. No. 08/043,928 teaches a method and means to expand a transmucosal opening from the round size of the implant to a larger non-round size that more nearly approximates the size and the shape of the tooth where it emerges from the gum. The present invention further improves the art with a system of interchangeable components which enables low cost and convenient replication of the emergence profiles of all the different sizes and shapes of human teeth.